My latest issue of Cigar Aficionado came in today, and after a quick scan I recalled a post I made a couple of years ago about the culebra cigar vitola, you can check that out here. With the possible exception of the tobacco pipe I wrote about, culebra cigars are one of the "funner" (is that a word?) cigars I have smoked...

Find Cigar Aficionado's review of the Partagas Culebra in the October issue. Click here for a preview.

TC-Keith

Labels: Cigar-Comentaries, Cigar-Reviews, Cuban-Cigars, Unique-Cigars

Permalink posted by Keith @ 10:34 PM, 0 comments links to this post

On a recent trip to a special Island a "brother" of mine made me a handful of tobacco pipes. I had actually seen them before, but I had never smoked one sober. It was a real treat indeed.

This cigar was made completly by hand... rustic, yet beautiful. A full flavor (look at the start), but not too harsh.

If you can belive it- it burned evenly from the start... This was a a great memory of a wonderful trip.

Thank you Michel...

Labels: Unique-Cigars

Permalink posted by Keith @ 9:28 PM, 0 comments links to this post

I have noticed some queries coming in from the search engines about the history of culebra that come into the glossary page. The glossary page does not give anything more than a brief description of the cigar, so I am going to write a supplemental entry about these interesting cigars.

Simply speaking it is 3 extra-long pantaletas braided together, and intended to be smoked separately. The cigar is created by moistening all parts of the tobacco to a very high level (80%) so that it can be molded easily. There is a greater chance of draw issues in culebras based on their construction.

The average torcidor is not trained to make the culebra, although there are a few brands that have a line (like Partagas and Davidoff I believe) that can be found regularly. Generally, you need to get them from a tobacco artisan.

Historically speaking, the culebra (which means snake in Spanish) is a unique cigar that that has been around since early 1800s. There are two stories I have heard as to their origin:

1. factory owners would give the culebraâ??s to their workers in an attempt to assure that the workers were not smoking the profits.
2. much less fanciful, and probably more likely, it was pure marketing- an attempt by a factory to develop a new line by a business man (not a roller)

Anyone really interested in getting a hold of one and can't, contact me, and I will try to sort you out.

Labels: Cigar-School, Cigar-Stories, Unique-Cigars

Permalink posted by Keith @ 9:00 PM, 0 comments links to this post